Jay Gruden shows loyalty in sports is not yet dead
Former Predators coach stays true to Bengals

Mike Bianchi SPORTS COMMENTARY

12:26 a.m. EST, January 22, 2012

Sadly, we don't see much loyalty in sports anymore.

As far as the untrusting eye can see across the fickle, faithless landscape, the grass (and the money) is always greener.

In the NBA, Dwight Howard and other established stars are leaving the teams that drafted and developed them for brighter lights and bigger cities.

In college football, head coach Todd Graham left Pitt after 11 months to take another job at Arizona State and said goodbye to his players via a third-party text message.

At UCF, defensive coordinator Ted Roof left after only 33 days to take another job at Penn State. He didn't even know his players well enough to say goodbye.

In Major League Baseball, Albert Pujols left the fans and franchise that love him in the great baseball city of St. Louis to sign an obscene $250-million deal in Anaheim.

Greed and ego have become as much a part of the self-absorbed sports landscape today as inane Twitter dispatches and high school recruits Googling themselves.

And, so, we bring you the story of Jay Gruden, the former Orlando Predators coach who just finished up his first year as the offensive coordinator of the surprising Cincinnati Bengals.

Gruden became a white-hot name for head-coaching jobs during the course of his inaugural season as a coordinator. His name was mentioned for openings in Jacksonville, St. Louis, Miami and all points in between. He is, after all, what any struggling franchise would want – a young, innovative offensive coordinator who is known for developing quarterbacks.

Nobody would have blamed Gruden for climbing the ladder and pursuing one of these better jobs. In fact, most of us probably believe he is crazy not to. It's not like head-coaching opportunities in the NFL – and the multi-million-dollar contracts that accompany them – come along every day.

But a strange and wonderful thing happened a few days ago. Gruden told everybody he wasn't going to interview for any of the head-coaching jobs. He said it just wouldn't be right to leave the young, up-and-coming Bengals after only one year as offensive coordinator. It wouldn't be fair to Bengals owner Mike Brown, head coach Marvin Lewis and rookie quarterback Andy Dalton, whom Gruden hand-picked in last year's NFL draft.

"Mr. Brown and Coach Lewis were gracious enough to give me this opportunity," Gruden said. "They went out on a limb and hired me and I didn't want to leave at the first job thrown at me."

Can you believe it – someone in big-time sports putting his personal goals aside because he actually feels loyal to the team? Because he's only been on the job a year and doesn't know if he's ready – personally or professionally – to become an NFL head coach? Because his kids are in high school and really like the Cincinnati area? Because he's happy where he's at and doesn't feel this intense internal pressure to bolt the first time another team waves a few million bucks in front of his nose?

Then again, this is Jay Gruden, a coach who would probably still be coaching the Orlando Predators in the Arena League had the league not folded and left him without a job a few years ago. It always astounded me that Gruden could have pursued lucrative assistant coaching opportunities in the NFL or college football, but for years chose to remain as player and then coach of the Predators. He was perfectly content running his own team in the Arena League and being a part-time assistant on his brother's staff with the Tampa Bay Bucs.

"I loved the Arena League," Gruden says. "It was a fun time. I was making a good living, living in a house on golf course in Orlando, which is a great place to live. And I was coaching a bunch of great guys who loved football. We just couldn't get it to catch on from a national perspective. Had we done that, I'd probably still be coaching in the league."

As starry-eyed players and double-crossing coaches jump from team to team and town to town, let's hear it for our boy Jay.

Loyalty in sports may be on the endangered species list.

But he's at least trying to save it from extinction.

mbianchi@tribune.com.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/os...577.column

He also declined to interview with the Colts.